This is an expression of what was probably in the back of Wolf's mind every day of his life in the Kingdoms! Today I live...but what of tomorrow? Never mind! For today I live! ... I think this is probably the only way any creature in this situation can coexist with the reality! For that reason, this is a poem written in the voice of all wolves everywhere, I think, and, as an extension - all oppressed groups.

WARNING! Poem rated PG-13...
...for hunting imagery; suggestion of violence.

Fall Night
crisp night
things-are-about night

First-of-Hunter's-Moon Night

New Moon is a bone awl
stitched stars on a velvet sky

down here, gold sequins stitched
on a deep forest fabric

Pass unseen but for tell-tale eyes

bound like Moon-shadow
thru Moon-lit glades

Smelling Fear
Feeling Hungry

close on the heels of
deer-rabbit-elk-moose-boar-buffalo

human?

Hunger like a red arrow finds it's mark.

One pursued
becomes
One caught

too slow
close enough
swift leap
fangs lock
shock
struggle cease
begin feast

afterwards
Supremely Satisfied
Moon gone down

roam the rough slopes to the jagged cliff's edge
ragged lava ledge plunge to valley below
dotted pinpoint lights of a people village
mostly sleeping, except the Disturbed

to whom I sing

what do they Know?
what do I Know?
what does anybody know?

Knows open sky
Knows prison cell
Knows the cell the self keeps the mind in to hide from open sky

Knows killing Knows killing Knows killing
Knows not being killed

Knows death Knows death Knows death
Knows not dying

not today, anyway

another day more
another night more
another Moon more...

to wander under open sky 'till this Moon is an old, shopworn bone awl
crone awl
outlasted by stars

Then?

New Moon
next Moon
bright flames pain arrow lynch mob
burning time?

but not THIS Moon

This Moon I live

live to hunt
live to eat
live to sing

from the rocks 'round ring
my song to This Moon

cry of Calleagh
cry of Banshee
and from my kind a cry to chill you others

"Life Triumphant!"
tonight
today
this Moon